Tadpole

TADPOLE (2002) ** Sigourney Weaver, Aaron Stanford, Bebe Neuwirth, John Ritter, Robert Iler, Kate Mara, Adam LeFevre, Peter Appel, Alicia Van Couvering, Hope Chernov, Debbon Ayer, Ron Rifkin. Indie hit at Sundance doesn't always mean surefire instant classic as proven in this precious mix of `The Catcher in the Rye' meets `Rushmore' via `The Graduate': snob prep schooler Stanford (suggesting Topher Grace's lethargic brother) returns to his Upper West Side environs for Thanksgiving break to announce his long-hidden secret to his step mother (Weaver): he loves her. Along the way instead he's detoured into a troubling one-nighter with her best friend (Neuwirth, the true saving grace of this overrated film) who proves to be a problem with his desire to come clean about his notions of what love is. Weaver's talent is muted here but Ritter provides some much needed comic relief in one of cinema's best 'choke takes' ever seen. The biggest setback of this otherwise tedious debut by director Gary Winick (who collaborated with his writers Niels Mueller and Heather McGowan) is its anti-hero being such a one-note faux intellectual spouting quotes form Voltaire and pretending not to like girls his age (notably the fetching Mara) that one wants to ring his neck from frustration of his dreadful putting on airs. Why anyone would find him attractive is beyond me since he is a total turn off socially; speaking French only hastens the matter! What could've been a slice of a John Updike short story in its approach fails in its myopic assumption of creating a cult hero like Benjamin Braddock or Holden Caulfield.

I've read some other comments about the poor film quality/picture quality of this low-budget, quickly done fairly short (77 minutes) film. Frankly, I'd rather watch Tadpole ten times than sit through the horribly boring technically beautiful special effects of either StarWars I or II. Tadpole captures the essence of interesting film making by focusing on the characters, the story, the situations; and it does so in a way that's doesn't parrot yet another low-brow TV situation comedy. Between the inspired writing, the well nuanced acting on all counts (with nary a weak performance anywhere), and the decent editing, I fail to see how one can complain about this movie from the perspective of it being an enjoyable mini-novella/romp through New York. Comments I've read on the weak acting I find unsupportable by any normative standard.

I'm perplexed by the number of people who seem to miss the crucial element of this film: that Oscar is not as mature as he thinks he is. His "love" for Eve doesn't feel real to the viewer because it's not. His patter--at tea, in the bar, and elsewhere--feels forced and self-conscious because it is. Because he is very intelligent, he makes the classic adolescent mistake of overestimating his own maturity and the force of his own feelings. As Diane, Bebe Neuwirth points out that it's not his maturity that draws so many women to him, but that he is still unjaded. That is, his most attractive quality is in fact the precise opposite of what he thinks it is. Eve's rebuff, though a bit ambivalent, forces him to reevaluate his own feelings. The film's only major flaw is that it leaves this process underexplicated, but when at the end he is more responsive to his classmate's overtures it becomes clear that he is starting to see the light, however vaguely. The film's point is thus obvious: a crucial part of growing up is realizing how much growing up one has left to do. That it makes this point in such a refreshing, funny, and absurd way is the film's charm.

Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is a fifteen years old French student, who lives in USA, and spends the Thanksgiving with his father Stanley Grubman (John Ritter) and his stepmother Eve (Sigourney Weaver) in their apartment in New York. His mother is French and lives in France. Oscar is very precocious, cultured, polyglot and loves poetry, and he finds the girls of his age very silly, feeling a great attraction for older women. Oscar has a crush on his stepmother. However, her forty and something years best friend Diane Lodder (Bebe Neuwirth) has an affair with Oscar, and he becomes quite confused with this new situation. "Tadpole" is a reasonable comedy only, having some funny situations, but never reaching a target, having a terrible conclusion. When the viewer finishes watching the film, he will certainly ask: -What is the point? Further, in accordance with the information in IMDb, Aaron Stanford was born in 1977. Therefore, he was completely miscast, being twenty-five years old and pretending he is fifteen. Further, he is not charismatic as his character would require. John Ritter is a reasonable actor, but looks very snob in the role of a history professor of Columbia. Sigourney Weaver is lost, in a character who is neither "Mrs. Robinson" nor an example of a faithful wife. The best parts of the story belong to Bebe Neuwirth, who is amazingly funny and makes the film worth, together with its soundtrack. In summary, "Tadpole" is a forgettable entertainment, recommended for killing time. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Um Jovem Sedutor" ("A Young Seducer")

Oscar Grubman is a `40 year-old trapped in a 15 year-old's body,' a bright prep school sophomore who prefers Voltaire and Henry Miller to icons of pop culture and more `seasoned' women to girls his own age. The problem is that the woman he fancies himself in love with now is his very own stepmother, a heart specialist appropriately enough named Eve.

Despite the admittedly touchy subject matter, `Tadpole' exudes a great deal of undeniable charm, thanks, primarily, to superb performances by a first-rate cast and to the wry humor of much of the Heather McGowan/Niels Muller screenplay. Aaron Stanford and Sigourney Weaver are wonderful as Oscar and Eve, two extremely intelligent people who know that in other circumstances they might have been able to act on their feelings but who have the wisdom and maturity to see things for what they truly are. The possibility of giving into a `forbidden love' can exert a powerful force on an individual, and `Tadpole' does a nice job capturing that theme in a lighthearted, non-threatening way.

Of course, `Tadpole' taps into that age-old fantasy of a young boy's obsession with an older woman and one wonders how the audience would feel if the situation were reversed and he were the 40 year-old and she the 15 year-old in the relationship. I suspect, somehow, that a film on that subject would carry with it a darker, more sinister tone than the one we find in `Tadpole.' Actually, there are a number of very funny scenes in this film, with much of the humor deriving from the secrecy, misunderstandings and double entendres that would naturally arise from such a situation. Indeed, some of the movie plays like classic Restoration farce with an ersatz-incestuous twist. A good deal of the humor arises from the fact that the older women in the film see in this precocious teenager the kind of passion, intelligence and sensitivity that they don't find in men their own age.

Director Gary Winick shot the film in a digital format, giving the movie a slightly shaggy `independent' feel. This heightens the sense of intimacy and immediacy needed to confront this particular topic without seeming to exploit it at the same time. A slicker, more `commercial' look and approach would most likely have made the film appear too sleazy, distasteful and arch. As it is, we are amused at the same time we are appalled.

`Tadpole,' by lowering the protagonist's age and keeping the matter `all in the family' so to speak, has brought `The Graduate' into the 21st Century.